Can Russell Westbrook fit on the Nuggets? & Defensive Versatility
Analytical breakdown of the recent rumors.
I am a huge fan of Nuggets basketball; I believe they play the crispest, most aesthetic style I have seen since the 2014 Spurs. So when I heard the rumors that they coveted Russell Westbrook, I was a bit confused. Westbrook, even in his exciting youth, did not play what I would call a beautiful style of basketball. The Nuggets work because they find the best shots - ranking #2 in Shot Quality the past two years - just barely behind the Celtics this year and the Kings in 2023. Westbrook, on the other hand, has been horrendous in shot quality - he’s never been a particularly good decision-maker with shot quality, but his good possessions have dramatically fallen off. There are a few reasons for this.
Westbrook is a player that loves the ball in his hands consistently and despite his monstrous pace, he plays the game at his own speed. Making the switch from star to role player didn’t necessarily increase his bad possessions, it just decreased the number of good decisions he can make. In addition, his athleticism has declined with injuries and age. Westbrook was able to make “bad possessions” for other players into good ones for him purely because he could do things other players couldn’t do. It’d be like if Steph Curry had the same shot diet but lost his ability to shoot - his good possessions would massively decrease.
So why do the Nuggets want Westbrook on the team? Conventional wisdom would point to them losing KCP - their defensive stalwart and reliable shooter from the corner. Without much backcourt depth, they need someone who can support Jamal Murray with defensive duties. But is Westbrook the right guy for the job? Or should he be in the backcourt at all?
I’ve had a theory for a while that Westbrook, with age, would turn into a dunker’s spot power forward - an Aaron Gordon lite. It hasn’t happened yet - Westbrook’s shot diet is still mostly pull-ups and spot-ups, not dunks or putbacks. But could Westbrook play the role I’m thinking?
Assuming Jokić would be able to reliably find him as a target - could Westbrook hold up on both sides of the court? The Rockets tried a similar version of this - albeit without a center on the floor - back in their small-ball years. With Westbrook creating drive-and-kick opportunities, the Rockets volume of threes went up significantly - but they lacked the personnel to actually do the job. Defensively, they were actually a positive. Can Westbrook maintain some of that defense?
For convenience, I wanted to see who the most “versatile” players are in the league. I used an entropy formula after making these percentages into proportions.
Entropy is a measure of uncertainty or diversity. In the context of DVI, it quantifies how evenly distributed a player's defensive efforts are across different positions. Higher entropy indicates greater defensive versatility (less specialization).
Using the proportions calculated above:
Calculate H by summing up each proportion multiplied by its natural logarithm.
\(H = -\left( p_{\text{PG}} \log(p_{\text{PG}}) + p_{\text{SG}} \log(p_{\text{SG}}) + p_{\text{SF}} \log(p_{\text{SF}}) + p_{\text{PF}} \log(p_{\text{PF}}) + p_{\text{C}} \log(p_{\text{C}}) \right) \)Then, Defensive Versatility Index=H×100.
Basically, some numbers to tell you: this small guy was guarding big guys more than the typical small guy would and this big guy was guarding small guys more than the typical big guy would.
I found Westbrook on the graph, and good news for my theory - he has a high versatility index: 9th in the league among players with at least 1500+ minutes. But there’s something important - versatility doesn’t actually always mean defensive success.
I decided to weigh Westbrook’s versatility against his matchup difficulty, and I found worse results. I used matchup difficulty because I didn’t want to use defensive impact stats as first evidence. As seen in the graph below, Westbrook does not actually have much success despite his “versatility”, suggesting he might be one of those weak links on defense after all.
It was backed up by other defensive impact stats, DDARKO, DDRIP, and DCrafted all put Westbrook even below the matchup difficulty - suggesting that his matchup difficulty might be benefiting from a boost because of negative defense as well.
Versatility isn’t completely useless. A lot of the most versatile players - Deni Avdjia , Scottie Barnes, Dillon Brooks - are also the best defensive players, both in matchup difficulty and in opponent field goal percentage.
Can Westbrook provide help offensively though? Prior results would say my theory is far-fetched - Westbrook looks like the anti-Gordon in this graphic - but that’s what hypotheses are for, right? To be tested?
At this point, Westbrook is such an anomaly of a player. No one actually believes he is the focal point of an offense, or even a real bucket-getter, but he is still being misused. It shows in his possessions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nuggets experiment crashed and burned. I’m not sure if it’s something that needs to be coached, although if I believe in a player being able to do it, it’s Nikola Jokić. Let’s see what happens in the next few days.